Heart's Fire
by Peres
Summary: Shianni's endured a great deal. She isn't the only one. A companion piece to Heart's Desire, and therefore also an overgrown oneshot.


**Author's note: This is a companion piece to 'Heart's Desire', but should (hopefully) be able to stand alone if you haven't read its predecessor. It arose out of a one-line joke there that seemed a better idea every time I thought about it. I hope you'll agree, and that you'll enjoy. **

**Please be warned that this story does include the events of the City Elf Origin from Shianni's perspective, and therefore contains some sensitive material. **

* * *

A wedding day is supposed to be a happy one, Shianni thinks, but she has her reservations in this case. Neither of her cousins have slept more than a few hours in days; Soris is a jittery mass of nerves, terrified of the bride he's never met, and Varyn moons around the house with dreamy eyes, mentally inserting her name and her groom's into the happily-ever-after of every romantic tale she knows.

Shianni thinks they're both being a little silly, but when she says this to her uncle Cyrion, he just laughs and says she'll be just as bad in a year or so, when her turn comes. _Never,_ she vows silently, and braids green ribbons into Varyn's hair, scarlet as her own.

"There," Shianni says, tying off the ends. "You're done."

Varyn looks up at her, suddenly as nervous as Soris has been. "Shianni? Do I look all right? Will he..." she blushes.

"Fall in love with you?" Shianni steps back, sets her hands on her hips, and studies her cousin carefully. "Well, that's up to him, but Varyn... you're beautiful."

And that makes Varyn smile; those who do not know better usually take Shianni for her sister, and sometimes her twin. She envelopes Shianni in a fierce hug that threatens to rumple their dresses. "I love you so much," she says. "And not just because you flatter me."

"I know," Shianni answers. "I love you too." Just one more moment, and then she pushes her cousin away, laughing. "Now, stop being all mushy at me; save it for your groom!" Varyn's answering smile is brilliant. "I think Soris is waiting outside for you, and I have to go check on the rest of the bridesmaids... go _on!"_ She shoves Varyn again, out the bedroom door and into her father's arms.

Shianni darts past them, deliberately not listening. Cyrion has been good to his brother's son and his sister's daughter, but Varyn is _his_, and some moments should be private.

She finds Nola and Kerra near the vhenadahl. "How's the blushing bride?" Kerra asks.

"Well, she's blushing all right," Shianni laughs, as they wander toward the gates. She turns, and can just spy Soris and Varyn headed their way.

The shems come out of nowhere.

One grabs Nola, twisting her arm up behind her back as she pleads for him to let go. Another grins to see it. "It's a party, isn't it? Grab a whore and have a good time!"

How dare they? Shianni's temper, always unpredictable, flares to life, and she looks about her for a weapon. She keeps a knife in her boot usually – Aunt Adaia's teaching – but she hadn't thought to need it today and her good dress doesn't have the pockets... How dare these _shems_ come to her home and threaten them, today of all days! Oh, she knows it's stupid, but they'll pay for hurting Nola, for disturbing the peace, for coming here at all -

The leader laughs, his eyes sliding like oil over Kerra and lingering on Shianni. "Just look at this little elven wench... so young and so vulnerable."

"Touch me," Shianni spits, "and I'll _gut_ you. Pig."

"Will you, now?" the shem laughs, and steps towards her. "Oh, I bet I can change your mind, little slut."

"_Step away from my cousin."_

He does, although Shianni doesn't think it's because of Varyn's command. "What's this?" he drawls. "More company? And such lovely company it is, too..."

"You're not welcome here," Soris says.

Varyn trembles as the shem advances on her. "Please, ser, just... just let go of Nola..."

"You do beg prettily," he says, a lazy, cruel smile on his face. "Maybe you can even convince me. I'd enjoy your efforts at persuasion, I think."

"Ser –"

He strokes the long point of Varyn's ear – she slaps his hand away - Soris lunges forward – Shianni sees a big, study bottle on a nearby doorstep and runs for it – the shem catches Varyn's wrist and squeezes – Shianni's hand closes around the bottle's neck -

"Oi! Shem!" she calls out, and as the man turns, she smashes the bottle into his face with all her anger. The glass shatters, and he goes down, his face bleeding.

It feels so good to see him lying there at her feet –

"Are you insane?" one of the other shems cries out. "Don't you recognise Bann Vaughn, the Arl's son?"

- and just like that, Shianni is filled with ice-cold fear, for this will surely not be forgiven, she attacked a noble and he will want _revenge..._

"Take him away," Soris tells the shems.

"Don't come back," Varyn echoes, rubbing at her wrist.

"You've a lot of nerve, knife-ears," he snarls at them, but he does lift his friend, and they do go, leaving behind them three cousins staring at each other, Kerra comforting Nola, and a choking atmosphere of dread.

"I... I really messed that up, didn't I?" Shianni says, her voice trembling like Varyn's hands.

"It'll be all right," Soris says; he doesn't sound as though he's convincing even himself. "People will only mock him if he admits an elven woman took him out."

"Maker, Soris, I hope you're right," Varyn says.

"Oh, look!" Nola cries out, staring past them. "That must be them!"

Shianni turns in a panic, and sees a small crowd gathered around two elves she doesn't know. It takes a moment to remember the wedding and how an hour ago, her biggest worry was her cousins' love lives.

The first stranger is a small woman with mouse-brown hair and long ears, looking as though she expects the gathered guests to turn on her at any moment – Soris's bride, she guesses. Well, perhaps her timidity will settle her cousin's nerves about the marriage; it doesn't seem possible that anyone could be afraid of her. "You must be Valora," Shianni says, holding out her hand.

Valora takes it with a smile that fills her plain face with warmth.

"I'm Shianni, and Soris and Varyn –" she indicates them "- are my cousins. Welcome to the family."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Shianni," Valora says softly.

Soris steps forward and awkwardly shakes his betrothed's hand, managing a small, queasy smile.

The other, Varyn's groom, is tall for an elf, and if his face isn't the blindingly-handsome one of Varyn's dreams, he looks well enough. He's a smith, or so Cyrion has said, and certainly he has the broad shoulders and muscled arms of one. "You... you can't be Varyn," he says, staring at her cousin. "I couldn't possibly be that lucky."

Varyn's eyes are fixed on his. "I... am, yes," she says, her voice hoarse and faint.

Shianni is smiling. At least this much has gone right. "I'll just go and see if Mother Boann has arrived yet," she says, and backs away. She still hears Nelaros promise to spend every waking moment learning how to make Varyn happy, and Shianni thinks he's off to a very good start.

She finds Elder Valendrian up on the platform and tells him about the unfortunate incident with the shems. His face darkens. "With Arl Urien away... Maker, I wish Duncan was here. He _said_ he would be."

Mother Boann appears with Nola and Kerra, and Elder Valendrian bids her a warm welcome. The betrothed couples trail them; Soris and Valora appear to be exchanging hesitant words, while Nelaros holds Varyn's hand as though he has no intention of ever letting go.

Maker, she was bad enough before, Shianni thinks, and grins at the thought, but she will be _unbearably _soppy after this.

The guests gather, and Elder Valendrian greets them. Mother Boann begins her prayer –

- and suddenly the Alienage is full of the sounds of jingling metal, and the shems shoulder their way through the elves, led by the Arl's son. Shianni stares at the livid gash across his forehead and tries to tell herself it's proof that he can be hurt, even beaten, but all she sees is that he is angry and bent on revenge.

Mother Boann protests, but does nothing as the shems surround them on the platform. It feels like a Fade nightmare – the same horror, the same powerlessness... "We'll take them all," the shem tells his friends, his armed guards. "Those two –" Nola and Kerra – "the pretty bride and the homely one – and where's the bitch who bottled me?" He turns, spies Shianni, and smiles slowly. "There you are."

In an instant, there's a guard behind her, and she screams as he twists her arm back so savagely her shoulder _burns-_

"You cannot have them!" Nelaros snarls, but his defiance is pointless; a mailed fist smashes him to the floor, and he lies unmoving. Varyn darts forward, with a gasp of horror, and is immediately seized by a guard; Soris and Uncle Cyrion try to get to them, but fare no better than Nelaros – and Shianni knows it's pointless to fight as they drag her and her friends away, but she can't help it.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

It's pointless to fight, she knows it, it's stupid because she can't win, she can't escape, she can't even make them hurt her less and she knows they enjoy her useless struggles because they say so, they praise her spirit and how beautiful she is with tears running down her face and bites on her throat, on her breasts, they even admire her bloody, swollen mouth and comment there are better uses for it than her endless stream of curses and screams, but they know she'd bite them, that she will resist to her last breath and they enjoy that about her, far more than they would enjoy the surrender she will never give them because she cannot stop fighting, she cannot just let them do this to her because it hurts and it's wrong and she never wanted this she never deserved to be hurt like this and they will not stop hurting her and she cannot stop fighting because _they need to die_ and she needs air but there is none, there is only the shems crowded around her with their smiles that cut and their hands that brand her flesh and all their endless ways of tearing her into pieces and she cannot stop fighting them, fighting for the air that has gone from the darkening world –

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

There is light when Shianni wakes; light and pain and the familiar ceiling of home. She turns her head slowly – it hurts so much – and sees Uncle Cyrion sitting at her bedside. His head is lowered and his eyes are closed, a livid, raised bruise just above his ear. Soft words fall from his lips, whispered pleas to the Maker and for his sister's forgiveness.

"Uncle?" Shianni rasps.

He raises his head to look at her. His eyes are red-rimmed, and he looks ancient. "Shianni. I am... I am so sorry."

There is very little she can say, but she manages, "Not... not your fault. You... tried."

"Can you swallow?" he asks, and when she croaks a yes, he holds a vial to her lips and helps her drink it, and then another one. "Something for the pain," he explains, and looks away when he explains that the second one will prevent a child. Then there is water, and a little broth, and the liquid is wonderful on her raw throat.

"-Varyn?" Shianni asks, the question barely more than a murmur.

Uncle Cyrion flinches. "I... I hoped you'd know," he says. "You've been drifting in and out for nearly a week now. Valora and Kerra were... returned to us. Like you. Nola and... and Varyn... haven't come back. Nelaros and Soris found swords and went to rescue you. They haven't returned either."

Shianni closes her eyes. Nearly a week.

They probably aren't coming back.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

The world turns, and days become weeks. They find Nola's body, and Nelaros's, beneath the docks. Shianni is strong enough to watch them given to the flames. Kerra and Valora are there, too. Kerra doesn't speak and won't meet anyone's eyes, but Valora stands besides Shianni and watches without flinching.

Weeks become months. Valora stays in the alienage, at Valendrian's house, and Shianni gradually comes to know her. There is nothing left for her in Highever, Valora says, and she still considers herself betrothed to Soris. She will wait until he returns.

Sometimes Shianni loves Valora for that, for her steadfastness and her hope. Sometimes Shianni hates her for it, this mouse-woman who has stolen her cousins' place and squeaks that they will come back some day – some day – some day –

Sometimes her spirit burns angry and dark – her cousins will never return, and those who think otherwise are fools. The only thing to hope for is that they died long ago, and painlessly. She learns to leave the house when the black rage chokes her, because it's not fair to Uncle Cyrion. His grief is a broken, shattered thing, and she can only hurt him with her fierce, bitter anger. They say less and less to each other, but understand more. There is no repairing this thing that has happened; the loss of Soris and Varyn is a wound that cannot be healed, but they learn how to survive with it.

Months becomes seasons. When the day her cousins would have been married comes around, nobody says anything. She and Uncle Cyrion look at each other, and he holds her very tight.

With the summer, sickness comes to the alienage. Usually summer is an easier time for the elves; food is less expensive, the killing cold of winter is a distant memory, and when the days are longer, more can be earned in them. Not this time. The city's stench turns deadly.

It hits the oldest and youngest first; they wake up one morning and cannot seem to breathe. In the first week, two of the babies slowly choke to death; in the next week, it's three more and two of the older elves. The shems lock them in, unwilling to risk their precious shem families, and Shianni grows steadily more angry. It is one thing to protect themselves, but when no food comes over the gate, it is clear that they are deliberately killing her people.

They may have even sent the disease for all Shianni knows, although according to Elder Valendrian's stories, when the shems decide to 'purge' the alienage, they are more direct about it. She knows herself that they are not subtle about getting what they want.

They endure as best they can, and then one morning Uncle Cyrion wakes fighting for air.

Shianni shreds their small store of elfroot and boils it for him, getting the steam right into his lungs, making him drink the water, eat the boiled, soggy root. It is the only thing the elves can think of to do, and it does ease their breathing. It's just that it doesn't help in the end. They haven't managed to save a single person.

Well, then, Shianni thinks, as she hovers over her uncle, the last member of her family, he will just have to be the first. She will not let him die. She cannot let him die. Fiercely she tells him this, and he makes a sound that would have been a laugh if he'd had the breath for it, and tells her that he loves her.

She scurries out to an alley, and screams until her throat is sore, too angry even to curse. Anger is easier, safer than grief.

"Oh," a small voice says. "What's wrong?" Shianni turns and looks at Valora; she sees the woman realise. "I'm sorry," she says, and Shianni just nods. There doesn't seem to be anything to say, even if she could speak instead of screaming. Valora puts a hand to her shoulder, and walks Shianni back to the little house where her uncle lies dying.

The Tevinters arrive the next day, offering food, care and a cure. Alarith is suspicious, but for the first time in so long Shianni isn't angry – she is grateful, and full of hope, and so she shows them to the empty rooms that would have belonged to Soris and Valora, helps them set up their hospice there, and hurries to place Uncle Cyrion under their care.

The hope spreads through the alienage faster than the disease had. The elves bring their dying children, their parents and their siblings, their spouses, and the Tevinters take them in. They don't allow any of the elves within; "Quarantine," they say, and smile, counselling patience. "You'll see them soon enough."

The days pass, and there are no more deaths.

"Nobody comes out, either," Alarith tells Shianni.

She shrugs, although she is eager to see Uncle Cyrion again... healthy, safe. "It hasn't been even a week. I suppose they aren't better yet." Alarith's paranoia is natural, given his past slavery in Tevinter, but she finds it a little irritating.

A month passes, and though the plague still walks among them, it is gentler. The Tevinters go among the elves, into their homes (and that's a place no shem is ever welcomed) and find the sick before they show symptoms. They take Elder Valendrian. Kerra. Elva, Taeodor, Adwen. Alarith barricades his shop and ignores all calls to come out.

Nobody returns. Shianni feels a familiar anger rising within her, and when Valora wakes sick one morning, she tries to dissuade her gentle friend from going to the Tevinters for help.

"No," Valora says, her voice husky, barely more than a whisper. "It's the only chance I have, Shianni."

"But –" _No. _There is nobody left. "Valora, please –"

"I'm going," she repeats. "Besides, somebody has to find out what's happening in there. I'll get word to you if I can."

Shianni begs, but Valora is adamant, and the next day she is nowhere to be found.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

The plague never touches Shianni. She does not know whether to call that good luck or bad.

The Tevinters ignore her, even when she stands outside the hospice, shouting at her people, trying to warn them to go home, save themselves, before they disappear. The elves seem blind, as though there are no empty places among them, as though their beloved elder is merely at home. Shianni can't see them, either, not through the haze over her vision that might be tears, might be rage.

She tells them and she tells them, but they won't listen. They look through her as though she is mad.

Perhaps she is. It seems unlikely that anyone could be used as she was used, lose their family to shem cruelty and shem treachery, and still retain her mind. It doesn't matter. She will stand beneath the_ vhenadahl_ as long as the tree will support her, and she will warn the elves to beware.

Perhaps one will listen.

"Go home!" she orders them. "Lock yourselves in where the shems cannot find you and make you disappear! Don't you see? Where is Elder Valendrian? Where is Uncle Cyrion? Where are Kerra and Valora?"

She is never able to say, later, why she turns her head at that exact moment, but she does. She blinks her eyes several times, trying to clear an impossible sight from them.

The vision of Soris doesn't fade.

His name is torn from her throat and she throws herself at him. His arms go about her clumsily, as she hugs him so tightly, so fiercely, as though only this prevents him from disappearing again.

"Shianni," he murmurs, a little broken sound, and she hasn't cried since she was three but she's very close now. The Maker has given Soris back to her, she is no longer alone, and everything else is almost bearable.

When she thinks she can speak without shrieking or sobbing, she holds him at arms' length and fills her eyes with him. He's filthy, emaciated. His hands – the strong, beautiful hands of a musician – are nothing but useless, broken lumps of flesh, the fingers twisted and knotted as a thorn bush. It makes her stomach lurch with horror (and anger - the anger never truly leaves her), and she looks up quickly. "You, ser, are nothing but skin and bones. What did they do to you in there?" Stupid question; she can see at least some of it, but - "Varyn?"

"Dead," Soris says, an old, weary grief.

She'd thought as much, but it's still hard to hear. Shianni takes his arm and leads him home, where they can be alone with their wounds.

She tells him everything – Vaughn and his men, the plague. The loss of Valendrian and uncle Cyrion. Of Valora (and something about the way he reacts to that seems a little strange to her). There is no word from within the hospice, she tells him; their people, their uncle, are probably lost.

They are silent for a while, and then Soris speaks. "We tried to reach you," he says slowly. "Nelaros and I. Maker, we tried, but they were so many and so strong. We were barely inside before they killed Nelaros and took me. I don't know why they spared me. There were times I wished they hadn't." He looks down, at his ruined hands. "Varyn... she killed Vaughn, you know."

She hadn't, and although Shianni is glad in a distant way to hear that he is dead, she wouldn't have thought twice about it if only Varyn had returned as well. Her life is worth far more than the bastard's death ever could be.

"Aunt Adaia's teaching, I think," Soris says. "Jammed a candlestick through his eye."

"And his men killed her?"

"Oh, no," Soris says softly, eyes fixed on a memory not nearly distant enough. "Well, yes. Not then. Not directly. They dragged him off her and threw her into the dungeons. The cell next to mine." His voice rasps. "It's a terrible place, Shianni. You can see everything that they do. There's no silence. There's always voices, screams. Sometimes it's you, but that's better than when it's her..."

"Varyn," Shianni says, her hands curled into fists, her nails digging into her palms, piercing the skin, drawing blood.

Soris blinks, comes back. "I could not even give her a clean death. The babe ripped from her womb, and they wouldn't stop her bleeding. It took so long..."

Shianni gets up, because she really will go mad if she does not. It's all a painful muddle in her head, as she tries not to imagine her lovely, romantic, light-hearted cousin – no. She fetches a cup of water for Soris, and with another knock of fury or sorrow, sees that he cannot even hold it. She helps him drink.

"We were rescued," he says slowly. "A Grey Warden mage, named Keskie Surana." He lingers over the syllables of the name, and it reminds Shianni of something she cannot place, like his smile... "She was there to save the queen, but she freed those of us who were still alive. Then she gave herself up to one of Loghain's knights to get us out. I.." he sighs. "I've never seen anyone like her..." and he describes the Warden for Shianni in glowing, heartfelt poetry.

Shianni looks at him. He sounds exactly like Varyn.

She puts it together a moment later. "I never thought I'd see it...You're in love with her." She smiles, and cannot help but think how much Varyn would have loved to see it. "You've got the stupidest smile on your face when you talk about her. You were going on and on about her face. And you should just hear the way you say her name." She lays the back of her hand against her forehead, sighs, and mimics his love-struck intonation as best she can.

"Shut up," Soris laughs, although he doesn't deny it. It is so strange – and both wonderful and a little sad – to hear him laugh, that there's nothing Shianni can say. There is no laughter in her, but she is glad for his.

The little house feels almost like home again, even if there are ghosts in its corners.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

Their days fall into a pattern. Soris needs her help to do much – even eating and drinking are difficult with his ruined hand – and she knows he feels himself a burden on her. She tells him that she doesn't care. She is too glad to see him safe, to have him here.

Shianni redoubles her efforts under the vhenadahl. Although she sounds rather more sane now, the elves still do not take heed. It wearies her, but she has to try.

She cannot stop fighting for them.

"Open your eyes!" she begs them. "You can't trust these shems! Please go home."

"Stop trying to get us all killed, Shianni," Jysan says wearily. "Some of us have still got things to live for."

The unexpected cruelty silences her for a moment.

"Now, now," a voice behind her chuckles, in a rich Antivan accent. "That is no way to talk to a lovely woman, is it?"

Shianni turns away from Jysan. There are two elves behind her, strangers to the Alienage. The first bears two swords crossed over his back, and his leather armour, though well-made, is marked by old bloodstains. Blonde hair barely brushes his shoulders, framing a face too handsome to trust, with three dark lines tattooed down one side. He smiles at her. She doesn't smile back. Well-armed strangers in the Alienage can only be bad news, as far as she can see.

She turns her scrutiny on the second elf, a woman in the ankle-length robes and silly tall hat of a mage, her staff slung across her back. Her fair hair is cut short, and her grey eyes are direct and kind. "You must be Shianni," the mage says. "Soris told us to look for you. I'm Keskie Surana."

Ah. Soris's description of a beautiful woman more fiery and radiant than the sun hadn't prepared her to recognise the mage. "You're the one who rescued him," Shianni says. "The Grey Warden."

The woman nods as the other elf steps forward and bows. "And I am Zevran Arainai, _mi fiama_, at your service." Shianni blinks a little at the Antivan phrase, but decides it's not worth bothering over.

"We're here to help," Keskie says. "The queen sent us. Soris –" and there's a softness in her voice when she says that name which has Shianni looking at her very hard – "said plague, and you suspect Tevinter treachery."

"Yes," Shianni says, and pours out to them everything she knows and everything she suspects. When she finishes, Keskie and Zevran look at each other, and grin.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Zev?"

"_Amica,_ I thought it first. And you _are_ looking most dreadfully ill."

"I thought so. Right." The mage nods to Shianni. "We'll go in, see what we can find. If we're not back by..." she looks at the clear sky for a moment, "... sundown, take this –" she presses a small token into Shianni's hand, which smells strongly of cheese – "and throw it outside the gates. My mabari will find it and bring help."

"You... have a mabari?" It's hardly a relevant question, but she finds herself asking it anyway.

"Or he has me, whichever way you'd prefer to put it. Let my friends – there's four humans, a dwarf and a Qunari – know what happened, and they can handle it from there."

"Ah... good luck," Shianni wishes them, as Zevran tips her a wink, and Keskie sags dramatically against him. She watches as they zigzag and limp their way to the Tevinter mages at the entrance, and shakes her head. They'll never fall for that.

Zevran coughs weakly, casting a beseeching look up at them. "Please, good ser, _mi amica_... she is so ill. Will you not help her?"

Keskie pats his shoulder with a trembling hand. "Don't... I can make it. But you..." she draws in a slow, rasping breath. "Please, ser. His wife is... crippled. His children are on the brink of starvation."

Shianni winces. She's a rotten liar.

But the Tevinters exchange glances, something hard and greedy in their faces, and coo, "Why did you wait so long? One day more, and it would have been too late. Come in, come in!" To the complaints of the others elves, they solicitously usher Keskie and Zevran inside.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

Shianni waits for hours under the vhenadahl, turning the stinky-cheese token around in her hands. The shadows lengthen, and there is no sign of them. The elves still beg for admittance, the Tevinters still pick and choose. As the sun begins to tip beneath the horizon, she stands up.

She has to go let the shems in, and confess she sent the Warden and her friend into the hands of the Tevinters and they have not returned.

"_Mi ardiente,_" a voice calls, and Shianni turns.

She's not the only one. The Tevinter guards are furious that some elves have escaped their net. Instantly they are on the attack, targeting their spells at Keskie and Zevran, ignoring those few of the elves who haven't scattered.

Like Shianni, who snatches a dagger from her boot and jumps for the unguarded back of a nearby mage. Finally, someone to blame for her uncle's disappearance, for Valora and all the others. Finally, something she can do other than shout mad warnings to people who do not listen. The knife slams home - and the feeling, the power of it as the Tevinter screams, is almost intoxicating.

Then Zevran is beside her, his swords flashing as he slices a gash across the mage's throat. "Well struck, _mi fiama_," he grins at her, as Keskie's flames dance across the Alienage to claim another guard. The Tevinters do not even manage to scratch them - as suddenly as it had begun, the fight ends. Zevran wipes his blades clean on one of the mages' robes as Keskie picks up her hat and puts it back on her head. Shianni looks around her. Their corner of the Alienage is strewn with bodies – some of them charred beyond recognition – and awash with blood. She's never seen death so close or so – so –

Her stomach heaves.

"Ah, _mi valienta,"_ Zevran says, and kneels beside her, holds back her hair as she vomits.

"First time?" Keskie asks, not that Shianni can say anything in response.

"I still remember my first battle," Zevran tells her, and chuckles. "It is not an easy thing. Come now," he adds, as she wipes her mouth and he takes her hand to help her up. "Let us get you home. There is much to tell, and little of it pleasant, I fear."

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

The story they tell sounds like one of Alarith's nightmares. Tevinter slavers in the Alienage, with the permission of Regent Loghain. Their family and friends taken beyond their reach. Uncle Cyrion a slave.

The only way Shianni keeps her temper is to relive sinking her dagger into the mage's back. Again and again.

"I _will_ make him pay for this," Keskie says, finally, and Shianni thinks she's talking about the slavers, but it's hard to tell when her hand just brushes against Soris's ruined ones. Shianni looks up, and sees that Zevran is watching them, too, his warm brown eyes a little amused.

"Shameless, are they not?" he murmurs.

Neither Keskie nor Soris appear to hear him as she examines his hand carefully, and finally shakes her head. She can fix what was done to his hands, she tells them, but the bones would need to be broken again first. Zevran offers to do it, and Shianni, somewhat hesitantly, asks if she can help too.

They turn her away, and a part of her is glad – but she cannot bear to go far. The Grey Warden and her friend have more than proved themselves, but too much has happened to her family at the hands of strangers. Shianni curls up against a wall of the house, knees hugged to her chest, and listens – to Keskie chanting, to the splintering of bones, to a cheerful, constant Antivan voice, to Soris trying not to scream.

It goes on forever.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

"Ah, mi_ fiama,"_ Zevran says, and Shianni uncurls herself. She hadn't realised it was over. "There you are."

"I-is Soris-?"

"All is well," Zevran says, and relief races through her, turning her bones to water. "Your cousin's hands are in fine working order once more, and I believe he does not even hate me for the part I played. Marvellous!"

"Oh, I'm glad."

"Oh, so am I. Being hated makes me nervous. Was that not quite what you meant? Well, never mind, then." He chuckles, dropping neatly down beside her, leaning back against the wall. "May I advise that you do not yet go in to see you cousin, _mi valienta?_"

"Why?" Shianni springs to her feet, and Zevran tilts his head up to look at her, a lazy smile on his face. "What's the matter with him?"

"As I said, not a thing. But I thought to give our pair of lovebirds a little time to themselves."

Shianni surprises herself by smiling. "Oh, you saw that, did you?"

"They were terribly obvious about it," the elf grins, "and I do have eyes, _mi ardiente_. I was there when she released him from his cage, looked into his eyes, and trembled. How could I miss it?"

"She _does_ care for him?" Shianni asks. She's known Soris since she was born, and her cousin never could hide anything from her, but the Warden mage is a stranger – a kind, miracle-working, awe-inspiring figure out of a tale - nobody she would claim to understand.

"Oh, yes," Zevran says softly. "With all her heart. But..."

"I don't like that word much," Shianni says. Nor what it implies for her cousin's happiness.

"Who does?" he sighs, pushing himself up off the wall. "It seems to be some disease of the Grey Wardens, but _mi amica_ is ridiculously attached to her duty. Me, I prefer to think that people should take their pleasures where they find them." He shrugs. "Then again, I suppose that there will be little enough pleasure to be had if the darkspawn slaughter us all, and only the Grey Wardens can save us from such a fate, I am told. So perhaps she has the right of it."

"Perhaps," Shianni says, and thinks of the way Soris had spoken of Keskie, like a distant dream. He'd never really hoped for more, she supposes, and at least he has working hands now. Still, it doesn't seem fair.

Fair? Nobody gets _fair_.

"Come on, then," Zevran says. "We should give them what time together we can, no? Tell me, _mi fiama_, is there anything entertaining to do within the alienage, or do we simply... make our own amusements?" He traces a feather-light line down her forearm.

The touch is light, but the invitation, the _intent_ behind it is not, and Shianni flinches away as memories and sensations she's suppressed roar to life, with his fingertip crawling down her skin, but this is one man and he cannot pin her down by himself, she won't let him hurt her again and she lashes out to hurt him first and stop him but he's quicker than her, his hand like iron around her wrist and _she will not allow this_ –

"_Brasca! _ What have I done this time?"

With the sound of the rounded vowels and the foreign intonation – not the hoarse gaspings that fill her mind – the panicked haze begins to lift. The elf lets go and steps back, his hands raised to indicate his harmlessness.

Shianni eases away from the wall. The clear air around her helps. She does not look at him. She opens her mouth, but there isn't really anything to say. She cannot explain, and she doesn't want to apologise. Finally, she does raise her head, her arms crossed – as if that will hide the tremble in her knees – and her lips squeezed shut.

His eyes are filled with more understanding than she can bear.

"_Idiota triplicato, io," _he says, quietly and with great vehemence. "Naturally you attended your cousins' wedding. Of course _il brutari_ who desire beauty only to maim it would not have left you in peace. I should have known. _Perdonamio, mi valienta, mi fuerta. _I will not trespass again." He nods gravely to her, and turns to go.

"W-wait," Shianni says, and he turns again.

"_Mi ardiente?"_

It's difficult to force the words out. "I don't want – I mean – please don't leave me."

Once again he understands. "Not until you wish it," he says, then adds, "I have been told that a little of my company goes too far for most, but I suspect you are made of sturdier stuff, _mi valienta_. Shall we walk?"

They do. He talks to her, tells her wild stories ("oh, I have no need to exaggerate, _mi fiama!"_) of the best Crow in Antiva and his unlikely adventures, culminating in his dashing failure to assassinate the Grey Wardens.

"_Mi amica_ is almost kinder to her enemies than her friends. I fully expected to be very dead by now."

"Then why go after the Wardens at all?" Shianni asks.

"A job is a job, and one has to eat, no?" Zevran sighs. "Well, that is true enough, but there is a longer story behind my grand and glorious failure." His eyes linger thoughtfully on hers. "One day, I think, I would like to tell it to you. If you would care to listen."

He talks on, surprising laughter from her at a couple of places, and he listens when she speaks. When she catches her toe on a bit of rock, he catches and steadies her. His hands do not linger, and Shianni does not panic.

It is only when Keskie finds them, deep in conversation by the alienage gate, that Shianni realises just how many hours have passed – the first time that has slipped so easily and pleasantly through her fingers since that disastrous wedding day. She decides to think about that later.

"You do not look as happy as I would like, _amica_," Zevran observes. "Did you learn something of your _amorato _that was not to your taste? His breath is bad? He has already many _bambinari_? He is Loghain in disguise?"

"Nothing like that," Keskie tells him, something heavy and painful in her voice, in her eyes. "He's a good man, and I'm a Warden with a job to do. That's how it goes."

"But..." Shianni says, can't help but say, "he loves you."

"Yes," she says, and no more than that. The silence is uncomfortable. "I'm heading back," Keskie says eventually. "Coming, Zevran?"

"Soon, _amica. _There is a matter I wish to attend to, first." Keskie nods and sets off into the darkness as Zevran turns back to Shianni. "Just a question, really. I will find those _feculari –" _and he spits the word out. Shianni doesn't understand a word of Antivan, but his intonation requires no translation – "who hurt you. When I do, _mi fuerta, _what would you prefer as trophies? Gold? Blood? Jewels? Body parts?"

Shianni just blinks at him. She has entertained several violent fantasies about what she would do to those men if she could, but never lost sight of the fact they were illusions only. Even if she knew who they all were, if she had enough power to punish them she would never have been prey to them in the first place.

Even if Zevran actually could reach them, why would he? "What do you get out of this?" She hurls the question at him. "Why would you pretend you can punish them? How can you even pretend that you could get close enough to try?"

"The 'how' is easy, _mi fiama," _he says, as if her outburst had touched him not at all. "I was, until several months ago, one of the best of the notorious Antivan Crows. There are few in this country who would be prepared if I should pay them a visit." The shadows around him seem darker, suddenly, and yet the revelation that she's just spent a couple of hours with a _Crow_ does not cause Shianni even a moment's concern.

For reasons she cannot articulate, she trusts him.

"The 'why' of it..." he sighs. "That is rather more complicated, _mi ardiente._ Suffice it to say even I sometimes have the urge to do good deeds without hope of reward. Travelling with the Grey Wardens is very bad for my self-control in these matters. But such are the burdens I bear." Zevran bows floridly. "When you hear of an outbreak of mysterious deaths – or perhaps merely castrations - among the idle young men of the city, _encantada, _think of me. I shall surely be thinking of you while I cause them."

"Zevr-" and he is gone.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

News flows more easily into the alienage now that the gates are open. Keskie had faced down Regent Loghain with a battle cry of 'For the elves', and burnt him to a crisp. It sounds like a quicker death than the slaver deserves; Shianni hopes it was at least hideously painful.

Some time after that, there is talk of a mysterious illness in the houses of the nobility and demi-nobility. It sounds a lot like dysentery to Shianni, but apparently the shem nobles aren't admitting to anything so undignified as fever, hallucinations, and a lot of foul-smelling, bloody shit. Most of them have it pretty mildly, the elves gossip, but by the time it's run its course, three of the houses have lost their sons.

Shianni hears this when Ophalen, who works at the Rose, brings her a note. "He was very insistent," Ophalen says. "Paid me well to do it, although," he rolls his eyes dramatically, "I wanted him to pay me well to do _him_. Ah, well. I suppose a guy like that doesn't need to pay."

Shianni turns the paper over in her hands. "Did you read it?"

"What do you take me for?" Ophalen asks, his eyes wide, his lip trembling. "Of _course_ I read it." He pats Shianni's shoulder. "Didn't really understand it, but I read it. Sounds like someone's interested, and someone else is very lucky. I'd better get home," he adds. "Good luck."

Shianni leans back against the doorway and opens her letter.

_Shianni, mi fiama,_

_I would bring this news to you myself, but mi amica says that we are leaving now. The darkspawn are massing near Redcliffe, they say – be glad you are well away from it, as I am._

_It is done – some of my finest work, I think. I apologise that it took so long, but mi amica was very firm on the subject. I was not to do anything to upset the balance of power until she had concluded her business at the Landsmeet, and it was to appear perfectly natural. Unfortunately this meant I could not provide you with any appropriate mementoes, either. The state il feculari died in, mi ardiente, you would not have wanted them. _

_We march to meet the darkspawn horde, mi corazza, and it should be amusing to see the demon's fire matched against that of mi amica. Perhaps it will be my last laugh, but I hope not. _

_I came to Ferelden to die, mi fiama, but I have decided I would rather live._

_I have such a story to tell you, after all._

_Zevran Arainai_

Shianni sets it down, frowning to herself. She isn't sure what to make of this man who has given her tormentors (Valora, Kerra, Nola and Varyn's, too) the ending they deserved, who seems to understand her, who calls her by Antivan terms she doesn't understand (which sound, sometimes, like endearments), whom she trusts, almost against her instincts.

She is sure of this much: she doesn't want him to die. She wants him to come back, so she can thank him for her sake and that of the other women, and for Soris's hands. She wants to hear the story he keeps hinting about.

She wants to see him again.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

The days that follow are quiet ones. Soris and Shianni try to pick up their lives again, but it proves difficult. The alienage feels strange about her – empty, waiting for something. Soris seems cheerful enough – if a bit lost, the way the world has moved on while he was incarcerated – but when he plays for her in the evenings, his repertoire is rather more melancholic than the dances and Dalish songs he used to prefer.

He's entitled to mope a bit, Shianni feels. He has lost half of his family, and even if his hands are healed, the torture he has endured has left deeper scars. The woman he loves, who loves him, is away fighting a giant dragon and a host of tainted darkspawn. Even given the colossal reputation of the Grey Wardens, that's surely not the sort of thing that she is likely to survive – and even if she does, she's made it clear that she cannot be a part of Soris's life.

Yes, Soris's melancholy is perfectly understandable.

Shianni's is not. She has had so much longer to mourn Uncle Cyrion and Varyn, and the others. She is in full health, and she has been revenged. She should be happy, or a close approximation of it, and she isn't. She is prickly and irritable, and she barely manages to distract herself by taking on the duties Elder Valendrian is no longer here to do.

She muddles along somehow. Then the darkspawn come.

They come by night, and the first Shianni hears of it is a pounding at her door in the red and smoky dawn. She hurries out to find Ophalen and Kerra, with Alarith and a number of other elves, clustered just outside.

"The darkspawn aren't at Redcliffe, they're here," Ophalen says without preamble. "Kerra saw the Archdemon pass over not ten minutes ago. Denerim's in an uproar and the gates are locked. Have you still got that bow?" Absurdly, it is only then that Shianni recognises that they are all armed. The sounds from beyond the gate to the bridge – oh, Maker.

She nods, ducks inside to pull it from its hiding place. Soris is just waking, but Shianni doesn't stop to explain. He's a terrible shot in any case, and they don't have enough bows between them to spare one on him. Ophalen is excellent, and Shianni is very nearly as good; Kerra and the others are competent.

Not that it matters, in any case; six archers cannot defend the alienage for any length of time. All they can do is kill some of the darkspawn before they are overwhelmed. The gates cannot hold for long, not against the horde Shianni sees, an enormous ogre in its midst.

Remembering the crisp orders Elder Valendrian had given, practising for situations like this one, Shianni lifts her head and squashes down her fear. "Up on the platforms," she says, and motions them up to overlook the gates. "Pick them off one at a time – don't waste your arrows, we don't have many. If the darkspawn have mages, take them out first. _Don't _get shot."

"Shianni?"

There's Soris behind her, and Shianni explains the situation in a few curt words – not that it isn't clear. He runs back to retrieve a sword he can barely use, as Shianni and the others fire on the horde. Shianni's arrow bounces off the ogre's skull when he lowers his head and charges.

The gate holds, but that won't last, and their pitiful efforts have not even made a difference.

They are all going to die.

Then suddenly the Warden is there, ordering them away. It's a very small force with her – Zevran and two humans – surely not enough to save them. Shianni gladly follows Keskie's orders as the gates burst open, falling back with the other archers, but not retreating. The world narrows, nothing but her heart pounding so hard and so fast it's difficult to aim as she releases arrow after arrow into the mass of darkness before her.

The air fills with the stench of burning flesh and the charnel-house reek of tainted blood – her arms ache and her fingers are bleeding – and suddenly there are no more darkspawn. Shianni lowers her bow and rubs her eyes. She can't believe this. They have... _won?_ The alienage is safe?

"I see your stomach has grown stronger, _mi fuerta," _ Zevran says. "That was well done."

Shianni opens her mouth to demur – she and the others were helpless, and her legs are about to collapse beneath her – but Keskie is yelling at Soris for being an idiot. It's a fair accusation – Maker knows Shianni's done the same thing – but her timing is terrible, as Keskie's companions are quick to point out.

"Thank you, Warden," Shianni says, when she can get a word in. "We would have died if you hadn't been here. We owe you more than we can ever repay."

"That's the job," Keskie says wearily, and she and the humans start to move away, Soris by her side.

"Zevran," Shianni says to the blonde elf who lingers behind. "I – I wanted to thank you."

He smiles at her – a smile surprisingly comforting, considering he's still shaking blood off his swords. "It was my pleasure, _mi valienta, _truly. I wish I could stay, but the Archdemon still waits, and _mi amica_ will never make it so far without my aid."

"I understand," Shianni says, and before she can think twice or start to panic about it, she rises to her toes and briefly touches her lips to his. It's a very little thing as kisses go, she supposes, but it means a great deal to her – that she can do it, that she wanted to.

She laughs rather awkwardly. "Um. For luck. So you'll come back."

"_Mi corazza_," he says, his voice low, his eyes bright with something she's not sure how to name. "I am quite difficult to kill. Be assured, I will return."

"Good," Shianni says, and no more than that as he inclines his head, then catches up to Keskie and the humans.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

One of the humans dies atop Fort Drakon, his blade in the dragon's skull. The rest of the darkspawn run back to their holes in the ground, and what's left of Denerim celebrates. The elves dance beneath the vhenadahl, and some of the young shems come to join them. For once, for a short space of time, there are no hostilities on either side.

Shianni manages to coax Soris out to play for them, but only once. She doesn't dance – the close press of the crowds can still make her uneasy sometimes – but she likes to watch her people happy and at ease.

Perched up on Valendrian's roof, she is half expecting the soft tread behind her, and the rich voice that calls her name.

Zevran walks the rickety roof with all the sure-footed grace of a cat, unarmoured, his sword nowhere to be seen – although Shianni assumes, like herself, he has a dagger or so about him. "A fair evening, _mi ardiente,_" he adds as he lowers himself to the thatch.

"One of these days you're going to have to translate for me," Shianni tells him. "For all I know, you're calling me all sorts of terrible things to my face."

"Oh, never that," he laughs. "I am polite enough – or perhaps merely cautious enough – to say such things only when there is no chance of being overheard or understood unless I intend to be. And I have never had the desire to say terrible things about you."

"Then you don't know me very well."

"A fault I intend to rectify," Zevran says, as he sits down beside her. They watch the people celebrating below, and the clear night sky above. After a time, he tells her a story of a orphaned boy who was taught to kill, but never to live; to use or be used, but never to trust; to serve, to obey, but never question; to punish betrayal and never feel regret. He tells her a story of love, slow-blossoming, surprising, dangerous love, that had erased all the 'nevers' the Crows had taught him – but late, too late. He tells her a story of death and despair, of a broken heart and the resolution to die, and of a Warden, either too kind or too cruel to let him.

He tells her, that starlit night, the story of a woman named Rinna.

When he falls silent, Shianni steels herself and takes his hand in her own. She says, after a very long while, "We all have scars."

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

There is plenty of room in the alienage, plenty of work to do and a shortage of hands to do it. That doesn't seem like a very good reason for someone like Zevran to stay, but it's the only reason he gives when people ask him. Shianni suspects more, especially as the list of Antivan things he calls her lengthens daily, but isn't sure how to ask.

He isn't the only one calling her odd things; Ophalen refers to her as 'Hahren Shianni' one day, and although she isn't a hahren at all – she merely does what Elder Valendrian is no longer here to do – within the space of three days, everyone within the alienage seems to think otherwise.

The main exception is Soris, barely himself since Keskie had come to see him and gone away again. Shianni worries about him; he spends nights at work, playing in a tavern, and days at home. He barely sees the sun, and says little.

He composes a song, a hero's saga for the Hero of Ferelden. It's wonderful, but it doesn't sound like his usual music. There's another song Shianni overhears him singing once – brief and fragile and heartbreakingly beautiful – but its intricate patterns fracture into discord and then silence. After that, Shianni never hears him sing again.

She wishes there was more time – time to comfort her cousin, time to spend with Zevran – but there is famine (Blighted farmlands produce no crops, and so many farmfolk died as soldiers) and there is disease, and her people riot against the shems. The shems react as thoroughly and violently as they always have, and 'Hahren' Shianni doesn't have the experience or the power to do much more than bandage the wounded and burn the dead.

Zevran, on the other hand, can handle this sort of situation. Shianni sees him off one night during the riots, a look both grim and laughing on his handsome face as he ghosts over the rooftops. She sees him return in the dawn with bloody daggers, and after that, the shems withdraw.

Slowly, life grows easier again. Keskie returns, weary and worn to the point where Shianni barely recognises her. But the love-light burns bright in her eyes for Soris, and when she leaves the alienage again, Soris goes with her. Shianni is so happy for them that she barely misses her cousin.

It is also around that time that Zevran explains to Shianni exactly why he stays. She insists that he translate a few phrases for her – _mi corazza, mi amora, amorata. _The words he says – _my heart, my love, beloved_ – confirm certain suspicions Shianni has been harbouring for a while now. He begs her not to repeat them – her accent, he says, is utterly atrocious – but when she tells him that she loves him, he has no witty retorts at all. The look in his eyes is far too tender for that.

"I won't marry you," she warns him softly. "Bad things happen at weddings."

"_Mi amora_, bad things happen when one stands on a raised platform in the midst of a crowd. I would not put you at risk simply to proclaim my heart to others. For such acts privacy is far better, no?" He raises her hands to his lips, and vows, "I am yours."

"I am yours," Shianni repeats, and then, summoning her courage, her raw stubbornness – and her love – she leads him into her bedroom. "A very long time ago," she murmurs, "you said something the alienage being the sort of place where we have to... make our own amusements?"

And in the golden light of a late afternoon and newly-acknowledged love, with a few false steps, several painful memories and a surprising amount of both hesitation and laughter on both sides, they do.

**-0-0-0-0-0-**

"Oh, I am but an afternoon's amusement, am I?"

"If you were amusing, Zevran, I'd be laughing."

"You _are_ smiling, _amorata."_

"Not at all the same thing. Stop posing in the sunlight and come back here."

"Whatever _mi corazza ardiente _desires."

* * *

**I love to fiddle with languages. Zevran's Antivan is part Italian, part Spanish, and part whatever sounded the way I wanted. The grammar is probably also completely up the spout. Translation as follows:**

_**mi fiama**_** – 'my flame' or 'my fire' (side note: Spanish for flame is 'llama'. Try making that sound romantic!)**

_**amica – **_**'friend'**

_**mi ardiente –**_**literally 'my burning' or 'my burning one', but 'afire' or 'ablaze' is closer. Stolen directly from Spanish – I just loved the sound of it too much.**

_**mi valienta – **_**'my brave one'. A slight phonetic resemblance to 'valentine'... if you have a punster's mind and don't mind squinting.**

_**Idiota triplicato, io – **_**literally 'triple idiot, me' – 'I am an idiot three times over.' In no way a Poirot reference. Nope.**

_**il brutari – **_**'brutes', 'thugs' or 'villains', but those sound a bit washed-out in English. It's meant to be a bit harsher than that.**

_**Perdonamio – **_**'Forgive me'. Much stronger than **_**scusa.**_

_**mi fuerta – **_**'strong one'. Carries connotations of 'survivor'.**

_**bambinari **_**- babies**

_**feculari – **_**'scum' or 'shits', take your pick**

_**amorato, amorata – '**_**beloved'**

_**encantada – **_**'lovely', with a little echo of 'enchantress'**

_**mi corazza – **_**'my heart'**


End file.
